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Dealing with bogus claimants

According to the Tribunals Service, 151,000 employment discrimination claims were accepted in 2008-09, but though the majority were genuine, a damaging minority are being lodged, not by genuine claimants, but by vexatious litigants looking to cash in on employment legislation, or by individuals with a weak claim who are willing to ‘have a go’.

A weak claim is one that has little chance of succeeding, while a vexatious claim is one made out of malice, rather than because an individual genuinely feels they have been discriminated against. One type of vexatious claimant is the serial litigant.

And it’s the ease with which certain individuals are misusing the law to lodge bogus claims of employment discrimination that is causing employers much wasted time and money.

An alleged serial litigant has recently been named by the Sunday Times, and is believed to have earned thousands by making claims against employers who use terms such as ‘school leaver’ and ‘recent graduate’ in job advertisements.

By lodging claims repeatedly, these ‘serial litigants’ could be earning up to £50,000 per year tax-free, and the Federation of Small Businesses says that claims by serial litigants are becoming a ‘significant’ problem for many businesses.

In this feature we examine the rise of the serial litigant and what employers can do to avoid falling into their trap.

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